© RFI
Zaida Catalan and Michael Sharp, UN experts murdered in the DRC.
The trial for the murder of the two United Nations experts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2017 ended on Saturday January 29 with the death sentences of 49 people.
Forty-nine death sentences were pronounced mainly once morest former militiamen of the Kamuina Nsapu sect, in retaliation for the death of their leader. But Colonel Jean de Dieu Mambweni, accused of having sent the two UN experts into a trap and of having armed their assassins, was sentenced to ten years in prison.
It is a verdict of 146 pages which was read for five hours by the military court of Kananga following four years of trial. But it raises more questions than it answers, says Thomas Fessy of Human Rights Watch.
If the Kananga military court condemned the former militiamen involved to the death penalty, that is to say de facto to life imprisonment, she deemed the evidence insufficient to convict Colonel Jean de Dieu Mambweni for “ terrorism, criminal association and war crimes as requested by the public prosecutor.
Jean de Dieu Mambweni sentenced for “violation of instructions”
The man who was accused of being the organizer of the trap into which the American Michael Sharp and the Swede Zaida Catalan would have fallen was convicted only of allegedly disobeying orders and letting the victims go to an area that he knew dangerous. His lawyer Me Daniel Makolo, contacted just following the verdict, is waiting to see his client before saying whether he will appeal to the High Military Court of Kinshasa. As for the defenders of the other condemned, they did not want to comment.
Human Rights Watch, like former president Dominique Kambala, immediately regretted that the court did not seek to go up the chain of command, thus neglecting the responsibilities of the state. Two defendants, including journalist Trudon Raphael Kapuku, were acquitted.
►Also read: Assassination of UN experts in the DRC: three years of chaotic proceedings
